B.C. logging truck driver saves moose calf from snowbank

A Vanderhoof man saved a moose calf last week, after it got stuck in a snowbank.

Wayne Rowley, who hauls logs for logging company Dalchako Timber, was driving the Kluskus Forest Service Road west of Vanderhoof heading to work when something in the snowbank made him do a double take.

“I came around the corner and it just caught my eye, ‘What is that sticking out of the snowbank?’ Curious me, I had to back up and have a look.

“It was a little moose upside down, stuck. I could just see his feet sticking up in the air.”

Rowley initially thought the calf was dead, but he walked down into the snow to check.

“I couldn’t just leave him. I went a little closer and he looked up at me. ‘Oh, you’re still alive!’”

Rowley dug a hole beside the animal, to give it room to roll over and free itself.

“He was wedged in, so he couldn’t roll. I put a rope around his neck and was trying to tug him. I ended up calling the guy in the truck ahead of me back to help me pull him out.

“We got him up on his feet and he walked out of there. Down the road he went.”

Seems it was the little moose’s lucky day, he adds.

“He would have died in there. We’d had about two feet of snow.”

Rowley says he didn’t see any sign of the mother, but he hasn’t seen the calf on the road again, so he thinks they were reunited.

“They must have hooked up. She would have tracked him down.”

The animal right side up again. Contributed photo

Wayne Rowley of Vanderhoof saved a moose calf from the snowbank. Contributed photo